Hillary Clinton likes Ike (even if his kin haven't returned the favor)

Before our fixation with all things Pennsylvania completely transforms into an obsession with Indiana and North Carolina, we wanted to take note of some insight Hillary Clinton provided on her views of past presidents (excluding her husband) to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

David Shribman, the paper's executive editor, took advantage of the access Pennsylvania media enjoyed with Clinton and Barack Obama over the last month and a half to ask them, as they dropped by his offices, about the predecessor portraits each would choose for the White House should one of them be in position to redecorate its interior come next winter.

Each opted for the obvious choice -- Abe Lincoln (especially obvious for Obama, who noted that the 16th president was the last who came from Illinois and went into office "not very experienced").

But Clinton named several others whose visages she would like to gaze upon as a White House occupant. Wrote Shribman:

"Besides Lincoln, Mrs. Clinton cited George Washington ('for navigating this new nation through some very challenging times'), Theodore Roosevelt (who 'understood the challenge of moving from an agrarian to an industrial society') and Dwight D. Eisenhower (who had a 'real, almost visionary aspect that we often don't think of')."

The Roosevelt pick is noteworthy because he's way up there on John McCain's hero list, as well. But most intriguing is ...

the Eisenhower selection, and Clinton's words of praise for him.

Eisenhower does get credit these days for warning, in his last official address as president, of the growing sway of a "military-industrial complex," which perhaps is what Clinton is referring to.

Few historians we've read, though, use the term "visionary" in dissecting his administration, so it would be worth hearing Clinton expand on this point. We also recall that at least one Democratic icon, Harry Truman, made little effort to hide his disdain for his presidential successor.

Indeed, Truman and his crew would have taken the type of umbrage to Clinton's evaluation of Eisenhower that she and Bill Clinton expressed about the nod Obama gave, earlier this year, to Ronald Reagan as a "transformative" president.

Eisenhower was the fatherly presence in the Oval Office throughout Clinton's elementary school days in suburban Chicago, so perhaps that influenced her opinion.

Shribman's piece, by the way, came out shortly before it was learned that Julie Eisenhower, Ike's granddaughter-in-law (she's married to David Eisenhower) and the daughter of Richard Nixon, has given the maximum amount -- $2,300 -- to Obama during this primary season. Back in early February, the Obama camp trumpeted his backing by one of the former president's biological grandchildren, Susan Eisenhower.

-- Don Frederick

Comments

[ginny]

SO WHAT a lot of us like the "old Presidents" get a life......

[Tim Gallien]

A NEW HOPE
We all have been living a nightmare. A vision D. Eisenhower warned of in his 1961 farewell address to the nation. In his address, Eisenhower warned of the corruption of our government, our society, and our culture by the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. It seems that, as a nation, we have not listened. Eisenhower’s dire vision has become our reality. And from this fearful dream, this nation is waking. Our eyes are opening to the truth collectively for the first time. WE THE PEOPLE are finding that we have been subjugated, placated into ignorance and fear, lied to by the very people we have entrusted to preserve and protect our rights, liberties, and our constitution. Many will turn away in fear of truth and close their eyes once again. To open our eyes to this reality, is to also understand that we are all responsible for it as well. complacency and dependence upon the machine keeps THE PEOPLE in line because it is convenient and safe. We have sold our souls. We have as a nation let this happen to ourselves.
My heart breaks for the people of this nation. Our government wages war upon our freedoms, liberties, and our constitution. I watch our republic’s destruction, not to the sound of guns or bombs, but to the sound of thunderous applause of those held captive by terrified patriotic blindness, guided by the propaganda of fear, as we give our rights and even the lives of our fellow man for the profit of the corrupt. A fear that is erasing our great history of freedom and repeating itself 70 years later with another dictatorship of war, under the guise of homeland security and the protection of the people.
BUT THERE IS STILL HOPE.
With love and openness, we can overcome ignorance and fear. It is our right as the people, and my duty as a United States MARINE written into our constitution by our founding fathers, entrusted to us, by the people, to ensure that our liberty, freedom, and the constitution never again become the subjugation of the corruption that we have wrought upon ourselves. We must take back our country, and give it to the people. So let us open our hearts, take responsibility, and make our HOPE become our reality. Lets begin REVOLUTION. His name

Dr. Ron Paul